April 2, 2015

Chicago: As Police Kill Youth, Vast Misconduct Allegations Purged

EXCLUSIVE: As Police Kill Youth, Vast Misconduct Allegations Purged

Thursday, 02 April 2015 00:00
By Sarah Macaraeg, Truthout | Report

This is the first piece of a four-part investigative series on the Chicago Police Department and the Independent Police Review Authority.

On July 4, 2014, as the final explosions of Chicago's lakefront fireworks extravaganza trailed into the water and began fading in the night sky, 14-year-old Pedro Rios Jr. crossed Cicero Avenue in front of an approaching police car, on the northwest side of town.

A brown-skinned boy just over 110 pounds, sporting a low fade haircut and the faint beginnings of a mustache, Rios walked in blue-and-white sneakers, shorts and a blue T-shirt - which soon bore the marks of two gunshots, fired into his back by a police officer.

The young Chicagoan technically saw the end of his eighth grade year; school had ended for the summer two and a half weeks prior. But given a spell of missed days and poor grades, Rios did not graduate from the neighborhood elementary school he attended with two younger brothers.

Pronounced dead on the scene of his encounter with police, he never will. ...............(more)

http://truth-out.org/news/item/29989-non-fatal-how-a-boy-s-deadly-shooting-by-chicago-police-uncovers-accountability-mechanisms-designed-to-fail

April 2, 2015

Driving While Black: Chris Rock Takes a Selfie Each Time Cops Pull Him Over

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/driving_while_black_chris_rock_takes_a_selfie_each_time_cops_pull_him_


His Instagram account reveals that Rock has had three car-related run-ins with police recently, on Feb. 13, Feb. 27 and Monday. Where the photos were taken is unclear. Monday’s photo is above, and below are two posts from February.

According to the Huffington Post:

Last year, Rock joked about cop stops while filming “Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee” with Jerry Seinfeld. The two were pulled over by a Ramsey, New Jersey, police officer while on their way to Rock’s neighborhood of Alpine. Seinfeld was driving an orange 1969 Lamborghini Miura P400S at the time.

It’d be such a better episode if he pulled me to the side and beats the s**t out of me, don’t you think?” Rock joked. “Now here’s the crazy thing: If you weren’t here, I’d be scared. I’m famous, still black. Right now, I’m looking for my license right now.”
After the stop, he added, laughing: “I was worried the whole time. I’m still worried.”

The 50-year-old has tackled the issue of police relations in bits like “How To Not Get Your Ass Kicked By The Police” and in his stand-up.

“You keep notes. You look for the recurring,” he told Vulture in December about how he crafts his stand-up routines. “What’s not going away? Boy, this police-brutality thing—it seems to be lingering. What’s going to happen here? You don’t even have the joke, you just say, ‘Okay, what’s the new angle that makes me not sound like a preacher?’ Forget being a comedian, just act like a reporter. What’s the question that hasn’t been asked? How come white kids don’t get shot? Have you ever watched television and seen some white kid get shot by accident?”

April 1, 2015

Indiana Shut Down Its Rural Planned Parenthood Clinics And Got An HIV Outbreak

(HuffPost) Scott County, Indiana, the center of an exploding HIV outbreak, has been without an HIV testing center since early 2013, when the sole provider -- a Planned Parenthood clinic -- was forced to close its doors. The clinic did not offer abortion services.

The Scott County clinic and four other Planned Parenthood facilities in the state, all of which provided HIV testing and information, have shuttered since 2011, in large part due to funding cuts to the state's public health infrastructure. Those cuts came amid a national and local political campaign to demonize the health care provider. Now, the state is scrambling to erect pop-up clinics to combat an unprecedented HIV epidemic caused by intravenous drug use.

The fact that Scott County was "without a testing facility until a few weeks ago is a glaring example of the kind of public health crisis that results when prevention and testing are left unfunded," said Patti Stauffer, Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky's vice president for public policy.

Indiana's GOP-led state legislature was one of the first to declare war against Planned Parenthood in 2011, when it passed a bill that defunded the family planning provider because some of its clinics offer abortion services. A federal judge later blocked that law from going into effect, but the state has continued to slash various sources of funding to Planned Parenthood at a time when the cost of operating a medical facility continues to rise. ...................(more)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/31/indiana-planned-parenthood_n_6977232.html

April 1, 2015

Gilbert buys One Detroit Center, persuades Ally to move

Businessman Dan Gilbert said Tuesday he bought the One Detroit Center skyscraper downtown and snagged Ally Financial as a key tenant, a blockbuster deal that expands his downtown real estate empire.

The deal also made clear where all 1,300 Ally employees in the region will be working: They won't be in Southfield, where Ally planned to relocate them. They will be in Detroit.

The deal represents a major coup for Gilbert and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. It also demonstrates Gilbert's outsized influence over commercial real estate in the region and the continuing turnaround for Detroit's central business district.

Contacted Tuesday, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson didn't join in the celebratory mood. "Mr. Gilbert gave them an offer they couldn't refuse. We'll keep the light on for them." ...............(more)

http://www.freep.com/story/money/business/michigan/2015/03/31/gilbert-duggan-one-detroit-center/70721582/

April 1, 2015

Indiana licenses discrimination, but at a high price

By Brian Dickerson, Detroit Free Press Columnist


I hope all the lawmakers who want to make it easier for Michigan businesses to refuse service to gay couples are taking note of the whirlwind Indiana has been reaping since it adopted similar legislation last week.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed a bill into law Thursday that allows individuals or companies in his state to turn away gay customers if serving them would impose a "substantial burden" on the vendor's religious beliefs.

Pence said the law was needed to protect citizens whose religious liberty is under assault by the federal courts. But critics in higher education, business, and college and professional sports denounced the measure as a thinly veiled license to discriminate and warned it might compel them to limit their activities in the state.

The president of the NCAA, whose Final Four basketball tournament is to take place in Indianapolis this weekend, expressed concern about the new law's impact on student-athletes and NCAA employees. ....................(more)

http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/brian-dickerson/2015/03/31/indiana-law-scaring-employers/70699572/